I watch the mallard ducks, tundra swan, and other waterfowl swim in circles, close to the spring-fed river where the ice, which has steadily swallowed the entirety of the lake, hasn't yet touched. The birds, presumably, are dipping and diving for food before the last moments of daylight slip away. Evening is rolling in and the sun glints across the mountains in the distance, stirring a sense of presence from deep within me. I catch my breath and watch the trail it leaves in the frigid air. It's been awhile since I've written anything. Staring upon blank pages wondering why what was once so easy has become an insurmountable task. I have come to see how writing is an act of love and to be honest I've been out of love with parts of the world. Avoiding my own feelings of discomfort and dismay. Time spent driving through towns which edge highway after highway. Who are the people who live here, what are their stories? Thoughts ramble and race from within me. My curiosity itches. My heart feels a longing sense of compassion for these broken towns. For the stories which have ended up unfinished, discarded like novels lacking the soul moving momentum to make it beyond the gas station book aisle. In the orange light I see billows of smoke rising, hollow faces trudging to the outskirts of town. I see a man crumpled over a grocery cart of bottles to the side of the highway. He is on a sort of mission, where that is to, I wonder. Perhaps another unfinished novel. I think about him and his life story, about the generations of him. I wonder how his hands look or how his feet feel walking day after day bent forward like that. I ache trying to put myself in his shoes.
I have been avoiding my feelings, I have been wanting to paint pictures that cover it all up and put roses boldy over the hurt. I want to accept that this is just part of life. Ever so often though my feelings seep in too deep and I can no longer withhold the barriers to my own truth. I imagine the children of these broken towns and I wonder where their dreams go. Zipping past a world of T.V's and fast food diets, cigarettes and flashing motels. Sometimes I can not turn off the faucet of my emotions and so with a sinking heart I watch the smoke of industry billow.
My mind creates stories of the place this used to be. Maybe it was once like the lake I sit at now, where aspen and willow softly dance together, where the thrush and fowl chirp with hope of a coming springtime. Ponderosa pine stands tall and mighty, and at her base the tracks of fox, deer, and rabbit may be found.
I marvel at the utter magnificence of creation, the perfection of the pink alpine sunset softly wrapping around me, the silence of winter where deep below the surface life secretly brews.
I do not know what to make of these stark differences in creation but I am grateful for the poetry woven into it all, even the poetry in the pain.
Passing through yet another bleak roadside attraction in the long winding night of echoes. I can't help but allow my mind to race and ramble itself upward and away, just like the billowing factory smoke, steadily rising into the crisp and starry night sky.